Display Technology

6-story LED display near Boston showcases art, sparks conversation

A major display likely won’t change the world, but what if it got people to cast away their divisions and come together to engage in meaningful conversations?  That’s the goal behind “The Conversation," a six-story tall LED display and building façade created by local artists along Assembly Row in Somerville, Massachusetts.

The LED display, designed by local artists in Somerville, is seen by millions of Boston commuters every week. Provided

November 9, 2021 by Kevin Damask — Editor, Digital Signage Today

A major display likely won't change the world, but what if it got people to cast away their divisions and come together to engage in meaningful conversations?

That's the goal behind "The Conversation," a six-story tall LED display and building façade created by local artists along Assembly Row in Somerville, Massachusetts. Featuring a unique, can't miss three-head design, "The Conversation" is a digital art canvas designed to stimulate viewers and ignite chatter and positive exchanges. The canvas changes often as various artists display their work.

The display is a collaborative effort from Street-Works Studio, Design Communications Limited and Daktronics, a large display and audio-visual manufacturer.

StudioHHH and Illuminus, a Somerville design studio, were chosen for creative content design and curation. One of the main pieces on the digital canvas shows Somerville and Cambridge residents actively listening to each other in an outdoor setting.

For the project's planners, connecting with artists was simple. Jeff Grantz, director of creative technologies from DCL, said the Somerville area, northwest of Boston, has the second-highest concentration of working artists (Brooklyn is No. 1) in the U.S.

"It has a huge community of creatives and artists in literally all disciplines and you can see that reflected in the artworks we have," Grantz said in a phone interview with Digital Signage Today. "You can see performance and dancers, graffiti artists, street artists, digital painters, all of which completed specific works for the canvas."

The structure is also strategically located near a parking garage and close to Interstate 93, one of the busiest thoroughfares in New England. Grantz estimates the display is seen by close to a quarter million commuters every day as they drive into Boston. Assembly Row has transformed into a hub of headquarters for large corporations, including Puma, along with several retail outlet stores.

"They were interested in doing something that's for the community and something that's purely an art piece," Grantz said. "There's no advertising, you won't see 'Assembly Row' flashed across the faces and you won't see them using it as a billboard. It's an investment from Federal Realty into the arts community in Somerville."

One of the unique aspects is it features three heads, one facing right, one facing forward and the other facing left. Artists can use the canvases to portray slow moving, lively content that is enhanced by the shape of the LED displays.

While the process eventually came together, there were challenges.

"We had to work in conjunction with the parking garage, which was being built at the same time just to provide the necessary infrastructure, mounting blocks, points of attachment, cable management, that went in first," Grantz said. "The high-tension screens went in first and then the negative space for the heads were framed out and we coordinated with Daktronics who built and assembled the various sections of the heads. We picked up the heads in sections that would be stacked next to each other, horizontally, side by side. The heads went up over the course of several weeks."

The extensive project did not happen overnight. Grantz said creative and design work began shortly after the pandemic hit in 2020 and wrapped up earlier this summer.

"The collaboration with the team at DCL and Street-Works began as a notepad concept sketch that came to life over many months of planning and coordination in the form of a larger-than-life creative digital experience," Jeff Everson, Daktronics technology strategist, said in a press release. "We worked cohesively through several design iterations and took full advantage of the flexibility of Daktronics freeform stick elements and our collective engineering expertise to pull off this unique digital canvas."

The three displays, measuring 47 feet tall, are transparent. Air can flow throughout the parking structure. In addition, each head features more than 500 stick elements energized from power supplies controlled remotely to increase transparency and make servicing the system easier.

Daktronics Venus Control Suite has been built into the system and controls operations. Content can be scheduled and adjusted using cloud-based or hosted options, depending on the needs of Assembly Row and the installation.

Featured artists on "The Conversation" include: Venessa Till Hooper, Studio HHH, Cedric "Vise 1 Douglas, Callie Chapman, Zebbler, Bruce Rosenbaum, and Pamela Hersch.

Grantz believes "The Conversation" presents an opportunity for other cities to collaborate on large display projects. It also gives local artists a highly-visible template to showcase their work.

"It's really a conversation to not only be a moment in time, what's going on in the world, but also a conversation the artist is having with the community," Grantz said. "The artist is also serving as a catalyst and expressing what is on the minds of those within the greater Boston, Somerville area. That's why everyone is excited about it. We don't know what it's going to be next month and certainly next year. It will continue to evolve and adapt and be a reflection of what's going on in the world and in the minds of artists in the region."

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